The teaching of writing, at Fairway, is carefully planned and sequenced to motivate children to develop a love of writing and encourage them to challenge themselves to write in different forms, for different purposes, with confidence in their abilities.

High quality, rich, inspirational texts are at the core of our literacy curriculum and strongly underpin the children’s learning. We use the Power of Reading, produced by the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE), to plan exciting and engaging units of work that begin with reading and analysing our key text. They then progress through to the teaching of key skills, allowing the children to internalise key language structures and orally rehearse rich vocabulary and ideas before culminating in the children’s own written work. The Power of Reading provides creative, structured ideas designed to maximise the links between reading and writing and lessons create a buzz of excitement as the next part of the key text is revealed.

By KS1, the children use model texts to help them to understand key components of different text types and these scaffold and support our young learners as they develop the stamina and skills needed to write ever more exciting, ambitious and challenging texts. Children are taught to write for a range of purposes including stories, poems, instructions, reports, recounts and explanations.

Self and peer evaluation is used carefully to allow our children to be reflective as they read and appraise their own, and others work, in a supportive, structured way to allow them to develop their skills. As they move through KS1, along with feedback and marking from their teacher, the children are taught to self-assess, edit and improve their work.

At the early stages of learning to write, our youngest children have access to a range of different media and writing experiences, both inside and outside. Their learning environment actively encourages writing with varied and exciting opportunities throughout each day as well as structured focus activities with teacher support.

Useful information for parents

Useful websites with games and activities for children